Angel Mounds State Historic Site, an expression of the Mississippian culture, is an archaeological site managed by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites that includes more than 600 acres of land about 8 miles (13 km) southeast of present-day Evansville, in Vanderburgh and Warrick counties in Indiana. The large residential and agricultural community was constructed and inhabited from AD 1100 to AD 1450, and served as the political, cultural, and economic center of the Angel chiefdom. It extended within 120 miles (190 km) of the Ohio River valley to the Green River in present-day Kentucky. The town had as many as 1,000 inhabitants inside the walls at its peak, and included a complex of thirteen earthen mounds, hundreds of home sites, a palisade (stockade), and other structures.
The Grand Village of the Illinois, also called Old Kaskaskia Village, is a site significant for being the best documented historic Native American village in the Illinois River valley. It was a large agricultural and trading village of Native Americans of the Illinois confederacy, located on the north bank of the Illinois River near the present town of Utica, Illinois. French explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette came across it in 1673. The Kaskaskia, a tribe of the Illiniwek people lived in the village. It grew rapidly after a French mission and fur trading post were established there in 1675, to a population of about 6,000 people in about 460 houses. Around 1691 the Kaskaskia and other Illiniwek moved further south, abandoning the site due to pressure from an Iroquois invasion from the northeast.
The Turpin site (33Ha19) is an archaeological site in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located near Newtown in Hamilton County, the site includes the remains of a village of the Fort Ancient culture and of multiple burial mounds. Numerous bodies have been found in and around the mounds as a result of thorough site investigations. The archaeological value of the site has resulted in its use in the study of similar locations and in its designation as a historic site.
The Kincaid Mounds Historic Site c. 1050–1400 CE, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located at the southern tip of present-day U.S. state of Illinois, along the Ohio River. Kincaid Mounds has been notable for both its significant role in native North American prehistory and for the central role the site has played in the development of modern archaeological techniques. The site had at least 11 substructure platform mounds, and 8 other monuments.
The Prehistory of West Virginia spans ancient times until the arrival of Europeans in the early 17th century. Hunters ventured into West Virginia's mountain valleys and made temporary camp villages since the Archaic period in the Americas. Many ancient human-made earthen mounds from various mound builder cultures survive, especially in the areas of Moundsville, South Charleston, and Romney. The artifacts uncovered in these areas give evidence of a village society with a tribal trade system culture that included limited cold worked copper. As of 2009, over 12,500 archaeological sites have been documented in West Virginia.
The Upper Mississippian cultures were located in the Upper Mississippi basin and Great Lakes region of the American Midwest. They were in existence from approximately A.D. 1000 until the Protohistoric and early Historic periods.
The Oliver phase was a Late Woodland Native American culture that flourished from 1200 and 1450 CE along the east and west forks of the White River in central and southern Indiana. The Oliver phase is of the Western Basin tradition which includes the Springwells phase, the Younge phase, and the Riviere au Vase phase. Oliver people were village dwelling farmers with a heavy reliance on maize, very similar to other Late Woodland peoples in the area the Oneota, Fort Ancient, and Monongahela cultures. The name was originally coined by archaeologist James B. Griffin in 1946 to describe a Late Woodland ceramic complex centered in Hamilton and Marion counties in the valley of the West Fork of the White River first extensively studied at the Bowen site.
The Plum Island Eagle Sanctuary is a 52-acre island in the Illinois River owned by the Illinois Audubon Society. It was purchased March 24, 2004 to act as a wildlife sanctuary, to protect foraging habitat for wintering bald eagles. It is close to Matthiessen State Park and adjacent to Starved Rock State Park.
The Summer Island site, designated 20DE4, is an archaeological site located on the northwest side of Summer Island, in Delta County, Michigan. It is classified as a stratified, multi-component site with Middle Woodland, Upper Mississippian and Early Historic/Protohistoric occupations. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
The Ellerbusch site (12-W-56) is a small but significant archaeological site in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Indiana. Unlike many sites created by people of the same culture, it occupies an upland site near a major river floodplain. Its existence appears to have been the result of the coincidence of periods of peace and growth in the related Angel site, which led some townspeople to leave their homes for new villages that were more convenient for resource gathering. Researched partly because of its small size, Ellerbusch has produced information that greatly increases present awareness of other small sites and of its culture's overall patterns of settlement in the region. Because of its archaeological value, the site was declared a historic site in the late twentieth century.
The Moccasin Bluff site is an archaeological site located along the Red Bud Trail and the St. Joseph River north of Buchanan, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and has been classified as a multi-component prehistoric site with the major component dating to the Late Woodland/Upper Mississippian period.
The Clampitt site (12Lr329) is a prehistoric archaeological site that sits on a sandy terrace along the East Fork of White River, southeast of Bedford in Lawrence County, Indiana. The site was excavated by the Indiana University archaeological field school in the summers of 1991 and 1992. The Clampitt site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. The site is located on private property. It is one of thirteen National Register of Historic Places listings in Lawrence County, Indiana.
The Schwerdt site (20AE127) is located on the Kalamazoo River in Allegan County, Michigan. It is classified as a single-component Berrien phase site dating to the late prehistoric period. The Berrien phase is associated with the late Woodland but also has some Upper Mississippian influences.
The Griesmer site (La-3) is located on the Kankakee River in Lake County, Indiana, about a mile southeast of Schneider, in Northwestern Indiana. It is classified as a Prehistoric, multi-component site with Middle Woodland, Late Woodland and Upper Mississippian occupations. The deposits were not stratified, but observation of the types of artifacts present, together with radiocarbon dates, helped to define the sequence of occupations at the site.
The Hoxie Farm site (11Ck-4) is located on Thorn Creek in Thornton, Illinois Cook County Forest Preserve in Cook County, Illinois, near the city of Chicago. It is classified as a late prehistoric to Protohistoric/Early Historic site with Upper Mississippian Huber affiliation.
The Knoll Spring site (11Ck-19), aka Au Sagaunashke village, is located in the Sag Valley, Palos Hills, in Cook County, Illinois, near the city of Chicago. It is classified as a late prehistoric site with Upper Mississippian Huber affiliation.
The Oak Forest Site (11Ck-53) is located in Oak Forest, Cook County, Illinois, near the city of Chicago. It is classified as a late prehistoric to Protohistoric/Early Historic site with Upper Mississippian Huber affiliation.
The Anker Site (11Ck-21) is located on the Little Calumet River near Chicago, Illinois. It is classified as a late prehistoric site with Upper Mississippian Huber affiliation.
The Fisher Mound Group is a group of burial mounds with an associated village site located on the DesPlaines River near its convergence with the Kankakee River where they combine to form the Illinois River, in Will County, Illinois, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. It is a multi-component stratified site representing several Prehistoric Upper Mississippian occupations as well as minor Late Woodland and Early Historic components.
Hiwassee Island, also known as Jollys Island and Benham Island, is located in Meigs County, Tennessee, at the confluence of the Tennessee and Hiwassee Rivers. It is about 35 mi (56 km) northeast of Chattanooga. The island was the second largest land mass on the Tennessee River at 781 acres before the Tennessee Valley Authority created the Chickamauga Lake as a part of the dam system on the Tennessee River in 1940. Much of the island is now submerged, leaving 400 acres above the waterline.
